


Make It Like Your Birthday

by TheBluestBluebird



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Birthday, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, Multi, all I want to write is these kids being soft with each other no plot no coherency only comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:49:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29567775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBluestBluebird/pseuds/TheBluestBluebird
Summary: Mal pets his face, leaning fully into the ridiculous idea now. “Ice cream cake. Chocolate cake. Cake-pie.”Carlos chokes on a laugh, somehow managing to keep himself quiet. “Can we get pie now?” he asks. “Midnight pie?”“Yeah.” Mal whispers. “Go wake up the others.” Because she’s nice, she even waits a second for him to nod before she puts her foot where her mouth is and kicks him out of her bed.
Relationships: Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants), Evie/Mal (Disney), Jay/Carlos de Vil, Mal & Carlos de Vil
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about these kids and what birthdays might have looked like for them and what they COULD look like now that they're a little closer to a happy ending.

The night after they’re sent to the medical center, they all sleep in the boy’s room. It’s not quite as good as the girl’s, at least in terms of how easily defensible it is, but it’s closer to the main doors, and the kitchens, which is critically important some nights. 

Jay and Evie are sharing one bed, leaving Mal and Carlos to share the other. Usually, they would split the bed situation into boys and girls, but after today, Evie didn’t want to sleep with Mal. She likes to feel secure, after giving up her defenses, and Jay is the best bed partner for when you want to feel safe and surrounded. 

Obviously, all of them are capable of defending themselves even in their sleep, but there’s something about being aggressively sleep-cuddled by a warm boy that makes it feel safer than Carlos’ constant sleepy twitching or Mal’s collection of knives she keeps hidden in and around the mattress. Cold steel might make for a great line of defense, but it has some flaws as a cosy bedmate. 

Evie and Mal usually sleep together, but Mal doesn’t mind sharing her bed with any of her crew. It’s kind of comforting to feel Carlos’ twitchy energy next to her all night, all the times he twists and turns and kicks her over to the very corner of the bed acting as a reminder that he’s safe with her. It might not be the most comfortable sleep Mal’s ever had, but she likes sharing with him all the same. Mal likes being the bigger one for once, likes being able to manhandle the other body in the bed to curl up small and safe against her chest. She doesn’t necessarily love the way that all of their pointy edges grate together sometimes, but she likes being the protector, instead of just the fearless leader all of the time. 

The breathing in the other bed has settled into the steady rhythms of sleep, and Mal is halfway there herself, when the body in her arms stirs, and Carlos breaths out her name like it’s a question.

“Mal?” 

Mal blows a puff of minty-fresh breath at his face. “What, C?” she breathes back. They’re practiced, by now, at talking without waking up the others. The insomniac crew rides again. 

He fidgets, worrying at the edge of Mal’s shirt where they’re tucked close together, like they’re one body instead of two. “They want us to have birthdays.” he says, finally. 

Mal breaths out what would have been a snort, if she were being louder. “You have a birthday, dipshit. It’s in the spring, remember? You and princess both have spring birthdays.” 

Carlos tucks his head, hiding his face in her chest, as if Mal could see him in the dark anyway. “They wanted us to know the day. It seemed pretty important to the doc.” 

He stops talking, but Mal stays quiet. She’s the leader, but it’s usually better, when they’re talking like this, if she just lets him wait it out. He’ll keep talking if she does, usually, and they hit some of the most important stuff if she lets him keep going. 

Sure enough-- “We sold them some stuff about only using months, so we can have the greed of celebrating all month long.” Carlos whispers. “I don’t know-- I know you guys, like, have real days you can give them. That was probably wrong. Sorry.” 

Oh, come on. “That’s fine,” Mal breathes. She doesn’t care what they tell the stupid doctors, so long as they all got through the day in once piece. The boys could have told him that island kids hatch out of eggs, for all she cares. 

Carlos, apparently, isn’t done yet. “You guys know yours, right?” he asks. 

Fuck. “August the twenty-first.” Mal whispers back. 

Carlos sucks in a shaky breath from somewhere around Mal’s collarbone. It tickles. “All I know is spring,” he says softly. 

Mal runs a firm hand down and up his back. They’re the ones who guessed a birthday for him in the first place, a few years back, when the rest of them were hitting puberty and he was still tiny, and the age difference between them all was more obvious than usual. “You know that we’re just guessing on that, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

Mal lets him muffle an uncomfortably loud hitching breath against her shirt. “We’re pretty sure.” she reassures him. “If you had been born in winter, you wouldn’t have made it through to spring. And the same for fall.” 

Carlos blows out a steadying breath against the underside of her chin. “That’s so reassuring.” he mumbles. 

“We didn’t know you existed until you toddled up to school one day. Give us a break.” 

“Jay knows his birthday.” 

Mal resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Jay knows his birthday because he had to hear about how he killed his mother every winter.” 

Carlos sounds sulky as he mumbles his next answer against Mal’s chest. “I know.” 

Ugh. Managing emotions is never Mal’s strong suit. “We can get you a cake once we get the wand, okay?” she offers, cajoling. “All the cake you could possibly want. A whole spring full of cake. You can pick whichever month you want.” 

He rolls over, away from her. “Great.” 

Mal scoots over to meet him. Gods, these beds are gigantic. “A different cake every da-ayy,” she sing-songs in his ear. “All the cake you can eat.” 

Carlos kicks her in the shins. It’s hard to tell if he means it or not, though, because he kicks in his sleep anyway. “We could get a cake so big a dancing girl pops out of it.” Mal says. “We’ll put Evie in a cake. Or Jay. You wanna see your boyfriend pop out of a giant cake? They’ve got that here, and it could all be ours once we get the wand.” 

Carlos relents with the kicking, and lets Mal spoon up to him again. “That’d be fun.” he admits. 

Mal pets his face, leaning fully into the ridiculous idea now. “Ice cream cake. Chocolate cake. Cake-pie.” 

Carlos chokes on a laugh, somehow managing to keep himself quiet. “Can we get pie now?” he asks. “Midnight pie?” 

“Yeah.” Mal whispers. “Go wake up the others.” Because she’s nice, she even waits a second for him to nod before she puts her foot where her mouth is and kicks him out of the bed. 


	2. Chapter 2

“When’s your birthday, Mal?” 

Mal glances up at Ben, through the purple curtain of her bangs. “August.” she says. “Summer’s end. Lungastrah. It’s the first of the fairy harvest festivals, supposed to signal a time of health and plenty, or something.” 

Ben looks a bit taken back at that. “Oh.” 

Mal laughs. “My mother planned it out so that I would be born on the most auspicious day she could manage. It was quite the production, apparently.” 

“I bet.” 

“You could always ask her,” Mal says, rolling upright. Maleficent is still a lizard, living in a terrarium on her daughter’s dressing-room table. Mal leans over to address her mother, who is currently hiding under her favorite rock. “Hey, mom. What was my birth like? Did I make you cry?” 

The lizard skitters out, turns around to show her tail, and crawls back under her second-favorite piece of bark. 

“Ah,” Mal says “She’s not talking to me right now.” 

Ben laughs, and pulls his girlfriend back down onto the bed where they had been sitting to cut out the paper letters for Evie’s birthday banner. “Understandable.” he says. “My parents have a home video of when I was born.” 

Mal pulls a face. Gross. “Yuck,” she says out loud. “Childbirth is disgusting.” 

Ben makes a similar face, probably remembering the absolutely horrible video they had shown the VKs a few weeks before the end of the school year, the video that was, apparently, played for every incoming class of kids as part of the school’s ongoing ‘don’t-have-unsafe-sex-or-you’ll-have-to-go-through-this-too’ method of education.

Learning through fear. Maleficent would probably approve, Mal thinks. She was always a fan of teaching the people around her to feel fear, so she’d probably approve of her daughter being shown wildly graphic videos of human babies being birthed. 

Ugh. She’s never having children, not unless they can just spawn into existence on their own. Mal suppresses a little shudder at the thoughts, and stretches up to tousle Ben’s hair. “Were you born with claws? Fur? Did my little baby princeling have horns?” 

Ben laughs. “I was born covered in fur, actually.” he says. “It all fell out before my first birthday, but when I came out I was like a little bearded kitten.” 

“Aw, how cute!” 

Ben flops over, wrapping his arms around Mal to take her down with him. “I think it freaked out my mom, actually. There aren’t many pictures of me from back then.” 

She follows him down, of course. “I think you’d look good with some more fur,” Mal admits. “A little beard for a little princeling.” 

Ben actually throws his head back this time, when he laughs. He looks good this way, happier, not so weighed down by the responsibility of trying to take an entire kingdom on his young shoulders. “Hah!” he laughs, twisting so he can catch Mal’s eye as his face falls into something more serious. “Do you really think so?” he asks. 

Mal presses a kiss on his jaw. It’s barely stubbled, but he would look good with a little scruff. A little bit roughed up has only ever been a good look for him. “Mhm.” she hums, and bites down. 

Ben jumps. “Mal!” 

She blinks up at him, innocently. She can feel the corner of her mouth trying to twitch up, so she bites her lip to keep her smile under control. Ben’s eyes track the motion. “You’d look hot.” Mal admits. 

Ben grins, and moves. Mal squeals. Ben might be strong, but he’s also heavy, and he’s using his bodyweight to hold her in place for better tickling leverage. “I think you’d look good with a beard!” she gasps out. “Ben! You’re crushing me!” 

Ben pulls back. “You’d better not be joking. I’ll do it.” he says. “We’ve got the whole summer before I have to look presentable again.” 

“You should. In fact, I dare you.” 

“Oh, you’re daring me?” 

Mal squirms until she can get an arm free, and reaches up to ruffle his hair. “Daring you to grow a beard for me, babe. Show me that beast side.” 

“Mhm.” Ben hums. He’ll do it, Mal knows. Her little princeling is not afraid to make a fool of himself, especially if he thinks it’ll make somebody else happy. And yeah, Mal’s not ashamed to admit this one, she’s pretty sure her boy would look good. He looks good most of the time anyway, but something about the way Ben looks when he’s a little less princely, a little more regular teenage boy really gets to her. Evie still laughs at her every time she’s tried to explain it, but Evie’s said that she thinks muttonchop sideburns are cute, so Evie clearly doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

Mal’s hands are already in Ben’s hair, so she uses the grip she’s got anyway to pull him down just a little bit, just enough to kiss him, just a little bit. 

Of course, this is when the door slams open. 

“--no way there’s going to be another show!” Evie exclaims, bursting into the room. “The news coverage alone-- Oh, hi Mal,” she pauses to give Mal a little wave. “There’s no way they’re going to make another Real Mermaids of Atlantis Beach, right babe?” 

“Uh--” Mal gets out, before the boys come piling in after Evie, already yelling back at her about the possibility of another Real Mermaids show. They hadn’t gotten hooked on it until the episode where Melodia tried to flip a table on Senea, but ever since violence became a very real possibility, they’ve been watching obsessively along with Evie every week. Mal’s started spending the hour with Ben, actually working on homework for once. Forget Maleficent, reality TV is the real plague upon the nation, if you ask Mal. 

“Aah!” Carlos yelps as soon as he’s actually through the door, in the five seconds that it takes Mal to get over her reality-television induced moment of weakness and untangle herself from her boyfriend. “My innocent eyes!” 

Mal sits up as fast as she can, which has the unfortunate side effect of pushing Ben over. A casualty of war, so young too. Tragic. 

“Mal Bertha, there had better be clothes on in that bed!” Evie says, as sternly as she can through her giggles. “Hi, Ben. I didn’t know you were coming over today.” 

“Oh my gods, you guys!” Mal cries, despairing. Ben is hiding his face in the blanket instead of facing them like a man. She’s pretty sure he’s laughing. “Look!” Mal says, when she pokes his shoulder and produces nothing more than a new wave of laughter. “You broke him!”

Evie flips her hair as she stalks past them to settle on the window bench. “Serves him right for doing terrible, unspeakable things to you in  _ my bed! _ ” 

“Hey, sometimes terrible things just need to happen.” Jay says, but he’s a terrible awful person too, and Mal can tell he’s just waiting for a better moment to laugh at her too. 

“What would you know about that?” Evie says, spreading her skirts more artistically around her. “Apparently you’re dating mr. “innocent eyes” over there.” 

“I take offense at that.” Carlos says, throwing himself down on the floor by Mal’s bed. 

Evie blows him a kiss. “Aw, baby.” she coos. “You should.” 

Ben sits up at that. “We weren’t doing anything,” he says, seriously “Fully clothed and decent, I promise.” 

Mal bites her lip, shooting Ben her best over-the-top flirty expression. “We could,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “If you don’t mind kicking these losers out.” 

Ben makes a scandalized kind of face. Aww. He’s too cute, this boy. “I’m joking.” Mal says quickly, before anyone can get any bright ideas. “No unclothed activities today, sorry.” 

“At least let me get a camera set up first.” Evie chirps, bright and excited from her summer courses, and unable to keep her smart fucking mouth in check. “Do you know how much I could make off a sex tape of the future king of Auradon?” 

Mal shoots her a glare. “I know where you sleep, Eves.” She reminds her girlfriend. 

“Yeah, in my bed.” Evie shoots back. “Which you’re still sitting in,  _ babe _ .” 

Oh, that means war. Mal falls backwards, starfishing as aggressively as she can while still surrounded by paper, scissors, and the not-inconsiderable weight on Ben sitting next to her, impeding her ability to get a really good sprawl going. 

“I live here now.” Mal tells the ceiling “I’ve commandeered it.” 

There’s the noise of Evie’s footsteps, moving over to the other bed, and then the thump and slide of blankets shifting on Mal’s own barely-made bed. “I’m taking yours.” Evie says. 

It’s a bad call on her part. Not to be outdone in the annoying-Mal department, the boys see Evie’s words as an opportunity to unseat her, and it’s only a moment before Mal’s bed becomes the center of a short, but intense struggle for control of the better seating. 

Evie ends up on the floor in pretty short order, not because she can’t defend a territory perfectly well, but because she’s a pretty princess at heart, and prefers more elegant forms of violence which are, unfortunately, unacceptable to engage in with friends. Mal has tried telling her that really, her healing spells are much better now, and she would appreciate the opportunity to get in a little more practice, especially with such beautiful slashes from Evie’s knives, but Evie keeps declining. Something about not wanting to stab her friends, whatever _that’s_ supposed to mean. 

“Aww, baby.” Mal says “Do you want to join me and Ben?” 

Evie sighs, but gets up anyway. She loves Mal, really. “In my own bed? How kind of you.” Evie says as she climbs up. 

“We were just talking about your birthday, babygirl.” Mal says, letting Evie sit in the space she’s thoughtfully made for her, next to her head and in close proximity to all of her exposed soft organs. “I got you sparkles and everything.” 

Ben, seeing an opportunity, jumps in. “We were!” he says, earnestly. He’s so  _ sweet.  _ “Mal was saying that you want a party this year?” 

Evie goes pink. “Oh!” she says, like she’s really surprised that Mal would think about her birthday. Like it hasn't been a defining day in Mal’s life since they were children. “I was thinking we could have a get-together. Nothing much.” 

Mal picks up her head just enough for Evie to scoot, and drops her head back down onto her girlfriend’s lap as soon as she’s in position. “Fancy dresses…” 

“Mal--” 

Mal doesn’t back down. “Fancy finger food. Music you get to pick out. Pretty girls in short skirts.” 

“Hmm--” 

“Chocolate fountain.” 

Evie is pretending to be too restrained to look at the other bed, where both the boys are listening with a good deal more intensity than they were a second ago, but Mal knows she sees them. It’s all about the way her mouth is tensing, like she’s trying to hold in the grin that Mal knows she wants to let out. “Oh, well then,” Evie says, eyes sparkling. “that’s convinced me.” 

“I knew I could do it.” 

Evie leans over to kiss Mal’s forehead, laughing. “I’m not going to turn down a party if you’re offering it! I was just thinking, with everyone gone for the summer, maybe we could do something low-key. Just us, a few others, a lot of snacks.” 

“Pretty dresses?” 

Evie goes a little pink around her perfect cheeks. “Yeah.” 

Hah. “I knew it.” Mal tells her. “You just want to make us look pretty.” 

Evie gives her a shake. “I’m allowed to have fun dressing you all up! That’s all you have to get me for my birthday, just a chance to dress you up like I want to, with no complaining.” 

“Am I allowed to have sleeves this time?” Jay asks, hopefully. It’s a weird look, largely because he’s got most of his body hanging off of Mal’s bed, and seems to be clinging on by virtue of his legs wrapped around the footpost. 

“No you are not.” Evie says, firmly. “Fashion is about emphasizing your best features.” 

“Aww.” 

“You can wear sleeves on your birthday, Jay.” Ben says, all sweet and earnest. “I’m sure Evie’s going to let you have them someday.” 

“Yeah, Jay.” Mal echoes, and the thing is, she’s not even trying to cause problems on purpose this time. “You’re allowed to wear sleeves in the middle of winter.” 

Ben turns to look at Jay with more concentration than the conversation seems to merit. “Your birthday is in the winter?” he asks. 

Jay rolls his head off the bed to look upside-down at Ben. “Yeah.” he says. “Uh. January?” 

Ben nods. He’s making what they’ve been calling his ‘therapy face’, or the face that he always makes when they accidently say something about their childhoods that’s more fucked-up than usual. “Oh, nice.” He’s controlling his voice this time, at least. “I don’t think I knew that?” 

Jay shrugs, which looks kind of ridiculous, considering that he’s gotten back up enough that he’s now laying upside down across a pink frilly bed. “Yeah, you wouldn’t.” 

Ben opens his mouth, but before he can say anything else, Mal touches his arm, and he turns, like a magnet, to face her. “Babe.” Mal whispers. 

Ben shuts his mouth. Mal gives him a little pat for being such a good prince. “Maybe shut up.” she suggests, not unkindly. 

Ben’s eyes flicker up and over Mal’s face, but whatever he sees there, he must take as enough proof that she’s not really fucking around, and he nods. “Oh.” he breathes. “Okay. Uh. Sorry for asking.” 

“S’fine.”

It’s not fine, is the thing, because Ben isn’t done. “You can all tell me to shut up if I’m going too far,” he says to the room at large, “but, uh, are birthdays something private on the Isle? I know Evie’s excited for hers, so I don’t know. I’ve never heard the rest of you talk about yours.” 

Evie laughs, bright, but it sounds forced to Mal’s ears. Maybe not to Ben’s, though. A girl can hope. “Not all of us celebrate them,” she says. “It’s not really an Isle thing. Where would we get the cake, right?” 

Mal jumps in before Ben can think of a response to that. He’s getting pretty good at navigating around their issues with food, but mentioning the lack of resources they had as kids is usually a fast track to an upset prince. “When Evie was a kid, my mom banished her and her mom for not inviting us to the party. Kind of put a damper on other parties.” 

Ben laughs, but it’s nervous. His new-people laugh, not the unrestrained one that had him throwing his head back to expose all of that golden throat a few minutes ago. “Oh. Wow.” he says, stiled. “ I guess that would do it, huh?” 

“You’re telling us!” Evie tries to exclaim. 

It’s uncomfortably quiet for a moment. Tense. Like it was sometimes, back home, when the barges were late and Mal couldn’t convince the others to take from her stockpile. Like when Evie would come in late to school, looking as perfect as ever, and then slip away before Mal could bring her back to the hideout after, and they had to make do without her until her mother decided to let her out again. 

Evie exhales around an uncomfortable giggle, breaking the silence. “Anyway,” she says. “I’m excited to celebrate this year! Sweet seventeen isn’t quite tradition, but I’m still ready to dress all of you up.” 

Mal reaches over to pat her beautiful cheek. “My sweet baby girl, all grown up.” she says, teasing. 

Evie turns into it, resting her head against Mal’s hand like it’s something special. “I’m still older than you, babe.” she says. 

Mal snorts. “For a month, sure.” 

It’s more like two and a half months, but that’s not important. Mal is still the leader, even though she’s the second-youngest. Any life experience Evie might get from that extra month isn’t important anyway, because there wasn’t anything worth experiencing on the Isle before Mal showed up. 

Evie shakes her head, like she knows what Mal is thinking. “What an important month it is.” she says, straight-faced. “All that life experience, crammed into one sweet month of being seventeen before you.” 

Ben sits up, finally. “Wait, hey,” he says. “Am I the oldest here?” 

He’s already had his seventeenth birthday, shortly before the school year ended. He’s one of the younger students in their year, but one of the oldest in the room. 

Mal snorts. “Uh, no.” she says firmly. 

“What? Wait.” Ben shakes his head. “Evie’s birthday is next week. Yours is in the summer. You guys were all sixteen when we brought you over here, and none of you have had a birthday yet--” 

“Hey.” Jay cuts in. “Winter birthday over here.” 

Ben turns toward him. “Oh! Right. If you’re seventeen already, and the girls are both summer birthdays--” 

“Uh, I’m pretty sure I’m eighteen, actually.” 

Ben is making the open face of acceptance again. “Oh?” he asks. It must be hard to talk through an expression that’s _ that _ incredibly open and neutral. 

Jay lifts a shoulder in something like a shrug. He’s not that great with talking about things. “Yeah. You know, man. It’s never come up?” 

“Uh. No?” 

“Huh. Right, yeah!” Jay snaps his fingers, remembering. “We lied when we got here. We thought if we were all different ages, we’d get split up or something, so we just made sure to get put together.” 

“Ben?” Mal asks her sweet, dumb boyfriend. “Hey, babe?” 

Ben seems to be having some kind of intense personal crisis that involves burying his head in his hands and tugging on handfuls of his hair while mumbling something about identification. 

Mal tries patting his shoulder, which does nothing. She moves up to untangle a finger from his hair, and he sits up so fast he almost knocks his head against hers. “You have official ID cards with the wrong age!” he bursts out. 

“Yeah, so?” 

Ben seems really worried about this. “You have official  _ court  _ ID cards with the wrong age!” he shouts.

Evie looks concerned. “Is he okay?” she whispers. 

“I think so,” Mal tells her. She reaches out to touch her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Ben, baby?” 

Ben whirls around to look at his girlfriend. His eyes look wild. “Oh, god.” he groans.“I have  _ so _ much paperwork for you to fill out.” 

“Uh,” Carlos breaks in. He’s still perched triumphantly on Mal’s bed, but he’s looking a bit like he might actually prefer to be on the floor in this instance. More chances to feel closer to hell down there, that’s what Mal’s mother always said. “yeah, so, this is probably a bad time and all, but speaking of that--” 

Ben looks over at him, stricken. “Not you too?” 

Carlos, at least, has the decency to look ashamed of himself. “Noooo?” 

Ben flops backwards and throws an arm dramatically over his eyes. “Oh Jesus. Just tell me.” 

“I’m kind of-- fifteen?” 

“Only a year off.” Ben tells the ceiling. His arm is still over his face, like he can’t even handle looking at them right now. 

Carlos winces. “Well--”

“Oh, go on.” Ben tells the ceiling, aggressively. 

“I was fourteen when we got here.” 

Ben sighs, enormously, and rolls over to bury his face in the bed like he’s trying to smother himself. “We kidnapped a minor,” he groans. “That’s great. We straight-up kidnapped a minor.” 

“I’m like, four feet tall. You never suspected anything?” 

“No! We’re trusting here! We believe people when they tell us stuff like their _own age!_ ” Ben cries. He seems like he’s having a little bit of a crisis. It’s weird, Mal thinks to herself, that he’s so unbothered by things like mass incarceration and the stupid-ass things some of his people have been sent to the isle for, and yet is so worked up about the wrong birthdays. 

Carlos shrugs. “Your loss, man.” he says, pulling out the game system that he mysteriously acquired one day, totally independently of Chad Charming losing his. It’s been totally reskinned since then, and there’s nothing anyone can do anymore to prove that it hasn’t always belonged to him. 

Ben doesn’t seem to care. “Oh my god.” he says again. “What else did we miss? Are there any more secrets you want to share?” 

“I’m a horrible, wicked fairy.” Mal offers, unsympathetically. She’s a little bit over this whole drama. They’re villains, they lie about stuff, it gets worked out in the end. It’ll be fine. They lied about lots of stuff when they first came over, and most of those have been working out just fine. 

“A horrible fairy who’s stolen your heart.” Evie chimes in. “And I’m a witch, here to learn your magical ways and make them my own.”

“I’m really good at getting bloodstains out of things?” Jay offers. “That’s something most people don’t know. Evie gets really mad if you bring her clothes back covered in blood though, so I figured it out.” 

“That’s disgusting, thank you,” Evie says sharply. “ _ I  _ didn’t need to know that one.” 

“What, you assumed I just stopped stabbing people a few years back?” 

“I don’t know what I assumed, okay!” Evie cries, throwing her hands up. “I knew enough not to ask what you were doing to my designs, and it seemed like it was working out just fine!” 

“If you’re going to distress Evie, I’m going to send you back to your own room,” Mal tells him, waving a hand arily in the general direction of her bed. “Get, foul creature. Back from whence you came.” 

“Harsh.” Jay says, not moving. 

“Get up or put up, babe.” says Mal, holding out a hand. “I want your left pocket. The inside one.” 

A moonburst candy hits her in the head. Ouch. It’s followed by four more, in a variety of colors. No yellow, though. It tastes like lemon cleaner, and apparently even Jay is smart enough not to give Mal any ammo. 

Mal pops a pink one in her mouth. “Thanks.” she says. She’s working on her manners. Evie should be proud. 

“I hate you.” Jay informs her, without malice. “Those were going to be for us to share later.” 

“Oou love’e!” Mal says, as brightly as she can through a mouthful of sticky candy. She’s still working on the manners thing, not all the way there yet. “I’m going to magic a new ID card for you, and save us all the paperwork, so you’ve got to love me.” 

“No!” Ben cries, in something like actual distress. “You can’t just  _ do that,  _ Mal!”

“Did you want to go through the hassle of getting us assigned new ones?” 

“No,” he admits. “Not really.” 

Mal waves a hand. “So why’s it matter if I make a new one?” she asks. “If I’m fixing a problem with the old one, it’s actually doing a good thing. I’m helping you by saving you time with the ID office, and I’m helping Auradon by making sure that we’re obeying all the rules for proper identification. It’s a net good however you look at it.” 

“I don’t think--” 

Mal leans over. “It’s a net good, babe,” she tells Ben, slower this time. “You don’t want to spend time in the office telling them that your sweet, wonderful girlfriend encouraged her crew to lie to the crown. We don’t want you to waste time doing that. The office doesn’t want you doing it. I’m helping everyone out here.” 

Ben sighs. “Fine.” he says. “But if you ever try to alter the official record with magic again, could you please not tell me about it?” 

Oops. “You got it.” Mal says, lightly. “I totally understand. No telling you about the illegal magic that I definitely don’t do anymore, because I am a good and pure citizen of Auradon now.” 

“No!” 

He’s too easy. “I’m not telling you anything else.” Mal says, and winks over at Evie. It’s not like she’s ever pretended to be a good person. She’s a work in progress. It’s fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there was originally a third chapter of this, but it got lost in a tragic autosave accident. RIP to the other isle kids having a chance to also be weird about birthdays.


End file.
